


Compromise Is The Difference Between Peace And Imposition

by AkiRah



Series: Beyond Destiny: Short Side Pieces (Entirely Out Of Order) [4]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/M, Introspective Gobbledygook, Jedi Critical, Light Side Sith Inquisitor, Marlitharn (OC), No code is one size fits all, Sith Pureblood, tiny kisses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-10-17 22:49:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10603899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AkiRah/pseuds/AkiRah
Summary: Marlitharn has struggled with the contradictions of the Order all her life, especially in regards to connecting with people.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Etienne_Bessette for the use of his Sith Inquisitor, Katsulas

She has two memories of her parents. Marli doesn’t think about it often, but while passing through a Market on a vibrant garden world she hears the giggles scream of a six year old and watches a bothan father toss his son high into the air and then catch him and cradle him to his chest, purring. 

Marli’s father had been tall and broad, skin like the surface of a dying star, bedecked in gold. He smelled like blood and burned flesh in the memory she had, laughing and tossing her high. _Nwit Asha,_ he called her, _Little Victory_. If she ever knew why, the memories have been lost after more than a decade. She doesn’t know why the words stick in her head. The room around him is dark, equipment hums and sparks, a corpse in a Balmorran uniform is slumped forward against the restraints. 

She wishes she could forget that he loved her. She wishes that that wasn’t the memory most closely tied to the smell of burning skin. 

Her mother had been beautiful, black veins lining her scarlet skin and eyes like embers. Eyes that had remained fixed on hers as the jedi’s lightsaber split cleanly through that perfect neck, silencing an enraged howl before it can start. 

_Conceal yourself, Marli. Remember your name._

In the marketplace the bothan cub sprints from his father to play with his friends, and Marli pulls her hood up, molten yellow eyes turned back towards the docks. 

Her life has been contradiction after contradiction, tugging her in too many directions all at once. She had to live by the code, because the code would help her maintain control. All of its other merits were pushed to the side by her teachers, the code gave her control. 

One slip and she could end up like her parents. Growing, Marli knew that the Master had meant that she could end up vicious and cruel. What she remembered understanding was that if she let go, if she lost control, they would kill her. 

Her pretty red neck would part with no more difficulty than her mother’s had. 

They needed her to be afraid, when she was little, to keep her safe. Marli understood that. It was the same as teaching a child to be afraid of approaching a wild animal. But that wild animal was herself, and now, more than a decade later, she was still trying to come to terms with that. 

She was crafted into a weapon and reminded regularly that every life was precious. Her teachers praised her skill, her speed, her grace and then reminded her that pride would be her downfall. To strike when and where the council bid it without question but that every death weakened her connection to the light side of the force. And that she was already too strong with dark side. 

To seek peaceful solutions, but remember that a Jedi never compromises. Even though compromise was the difference between peace and imposition. 

That deceit would steer her astray but that there were parts of her, little longings, that she could never voice or admit to, not even in her own head. She had to lie to herself but never to anyone else. 

Scourge was a test, and Marli knew it. She half-marveled that it wasn’t some scheme of the council to make her prove her commitment to the Order, to the code. But the Order would never test her, they would merely expel her, pyre-bound, when she failed. 

The closet the Order came to a test was Kira. And Kira was, in her own way, an anchor to the Order. They held each other aloft, struggling against their darker natures together and learning to overcome. 

The Force gave her Scourge, and that made the first failure all the more consuming. She was lost the first time he smiled, a faint nod of approval when she stood her ground against him in an argument. Little longings built up and disguised themselves as compassion because through her, he could feel. It wasn’t that _she_ was giving into her anger, she was just letting _him_ be whole. 

Anger became joy, became _passion_. 

And lying there, spent and breathless with the stars outside her window winking in the great black abyss and Scourge’s sweaty skin still sticking to hers, Marli found a touch of serenity. 

He failed to make her cruel, but Marli could feel him dragging her down with strong hands and hard truths. He didn’t lie to her because he didn’t need to lie to her. All the things the Council made her hate about herself, Scourge found reason to encourage. 

Her temper, her glib tongue, her molten gold eyes, the bloody color of her skin. She sank her sharp teeth into the pad of his thumb to silence the cries he pulled from her and told herself it was as much for him as for her. She told herself she was losing who she was in him. 

And a treacherous voice, entirely her own, asked if she even knew who she was. Or if all she had were a series of contradictions and a Code that didn’t speak to her.

* * *

When things are darkest, the Universe gives her a hand up. His name is Kat and he’s sith. Not like _her_ , Kat’s human, but sith all the same. He laughs brightly and shifts his weight, almost hesitant and awkward but unapologetically existing. And merely by existing, Kat allows himself to be revolutionary. 

Not that he sees it that way. 

He pushes his black bangs out of his eyes to show her the slave brands on his brown skin and gives her softness a small smile of approval that crinkles around his violet eyes and makes them glow. They grow closer while they hunt and destroy Revan’s cult. There’s darkness in Kat’s soul, but he won’t let it own him. He gestures to the brands again and says that nothing will own him again. 

_Through Victory, my chains are broken._

And Marli thinks about her chains, and how every victory has only wrapped them more tightly around her. But maybe no code is universal. Maybe there are different ways to anchor oneself against evil. Maybe one of those ways is Kat’s, to embrace a little and use it as a vaccine against the worst. 

Attachments, she learns, don’t have to hurt. Kat stands at her side, not in front or behind but prepared to face the coming challenges as equals. He’s free with his affection when it’s just them, nuzzling against her like a nexu cub, a metre and a half of stubborn determination. 

Kat props her up where Scourge pulls her down. He’s sith but he tells her in earnest it would crush him if she fell. He believes in her, in her goodness, in her strength. And for once, Marli doesn’t feel _destined_ to fail. 

It’s new, and she likes it. She breathes deeply and thinks, emotion, yet peace, and pictures Kat, who has a tenuous grasp on the later even as he offers it to her freely. When he comes to her for advice it doesn’t feel like Kira seeking guidance, it’s relaxed. He flops onto her bed and sighs and speaks and works things out for himself, bouncing them off of her. Trusting her to speak when she needs to. 

Kat is Sith. His passions fuel his power, but he doesn’t let them own him. He gives her a sheepish apology after letting Scourge fuck him, not because the desire was wrong, but because he’s her friend. And she matters to him. 

Not as a tool. Not as a weapon. 

As a friend. 

Nothing less and Marli isn’t sure there _could_ be anything more.

* * *

Arcann isn’t the man she fought against any longer. There are traces of him, linger glimpses in the way he stands when he’s certain he’s right that remind her that the man in front of her had been an Emperor. She doesn’t mind those moments, they’re better than the ones where he looks at the console instead of at anyone else. They’re better than the ones where he is silent and lost in what he’s done. What he allowed himself to become. 

A Jedi doesn’t compromise, but the Alliance she’s built is a compromise. Letting Senya take Arcann was a compromise. Letting Arcann live was a compromise. She has made compromises since meeting Kat on Manann and they have all been to the benefit of everyone. Perhaps the Jedi were wrong about compromises. 

Arcann looks at the darkness in himself and hates it, but he doesn’t hide. He doesn’t embrace it like Scourge and he doesn’t use it like Kat. He names it and casts it out. He won’t deny what he’s done, he won’t permit anyone to forget, least of all himself. 

_I was a monster,_ he exudes, _and now I will be better._

They are, in many ways, so alike. Molded by others who would use them, struggling to find who they were and who they wanted to be. Greatness was thrust at them before they were ready and Arcann had fallen and Marli had been caught before she could. She imagines having Kat ripped from her would break her the way Thexan’s loss had broken Arcann.

 _If I lose myself again, you must end my life,_ Arcann tells her while they are alone. _You must not hesitate._

A Jedi Doesn’t Compromise, but Marli sets her hand on Arcann’s metal shoulder and exhales. 

_Only if I cannot bring you back._

The first time Arcann kisses her, he does so slowly. He cups her cheek, thumb running over the trio of long vertical scars that run from her forehead half-way down her cheek. “You’re beautiful,” he breathes. He leans in and hesitantly lets his lips brush against hers, giving her time to move out of the way if she wants. 

_Love is chaos,_ she thinks, _unpredictable and dangerous._

She kisses him back.

And there is harmony.


End file.
